Income School Review: Project 24 Still Useful in 2024?

Looking for an Income School review from someone who has actually gone through the course in 2024?

I gotcha covered (and as you’ll see, times have changed!). 

Income School’s Project 24 claims it can teach you how to pull in a full-time income with a blog or YouTube channel. But does it really live up to the hype? 

And more importantly, do their methods still work in TODAY’S environment?

Our research team spent some serious time digging into Ricky Kesler’s Project 24 course to see if it’s still relevant.

Nobody wants to drop cash on a lame course (we’ve all been there). So, in this Project 24 review, we’re laying it out straight so you can make an educated decision on what’s right for you. 

Let’s get right to it. 

👀 This is a Level 2 review. Read more about our in-depth course review process.

Income School Project 24 review: What you need to know

Income School Project 24 is a comprehensive training program that teaches how to monetize a blog or YouTube channel into a full-time income ($4,000+ per month). That said, there is minimal evidence to show that their methods still work today. 

It may have once been an amazing course. But as you’ll see, there’s some concerning information that may make you want to consider one of these other best affiliate marketing course. 

Let’s start by investigating who actually created Project 24.

Ricky Kesler review: Who even is this guy?!

Income School was originally cofounded by Rickey Kesler and Jim Harmer. As of 2021, Jim is no longer with the company, but the lessons he recorded are still available on the platform. 

Since starting Income School in 2015, Rickey Kesler has built and successfully monetized a ton of different niche websites. In an industry where sites are often kept secret, Rickey shares some sites (some of which he’s now sold) with the public. 

Here’s just a few of the large list:

CamperReport.com, which earned slightly over $8,000 with an average of 100,000 pageviews per month. Earnings come mostly from ads, followed by Amazon affiliates.  

EmboraPets.com was sold to a new owner for $60,000. At the time of the sale, they published 530 posts and monthly traffic was just shy of 124,000.

The Channel Makers Youtube channel, with 235,000+ subscribers.

And of course I should probably include Income School’s website itself which reportedly earns $60,000 per month.

What’s included in Ricky Kesler’s Income School Project 24 course?

Project 24 is a little different from a regular course. It’s structured as a bunch of different courses all inside one program. 

The two main courses are for blogging and YouTube, and every other course or resource are supplementary to those two. 

The course material is broken down into 4 parts:

1. Main course lessons
2. Webinars and office hours
3. Community
4. Extra bonuses and resources

#1.) Main course lessons

This program technically has 26 different courses. 

The two main courses are The Blogging System and the YouTube System. Every other course included is extra information for those two main courses. 

If it’s difficult to visualize what I mean by 26 different courses, let me show you what the course dashboard looks like. 

Inside each category, there are different courses that you can take depending on what you need. Here’s a screenshot of the types of courses you have available to you inside the blogging category. 

Each course has multiple video lessons recorded by either Ricky, Jim, or their team. 

Each lesson has an action step, additional resources, and even extra videos to break down exactly what you need to do. 

I found the video lessons to be really clear and easy to follow. The action steps are also helpful to avoid any confusion on what you need to do next. 

This is also one of the only courses I’ve seen that bundles both YouTube and blogs into one course.

Here’s what the inside of a course looks like. 

Here’s what the additional resources look like: 

There’s so much information packed in this program that it can get overwhelming. 

To give you an idea, the YouTube category has 80 lessons, blogging has 75 lessons, marketing has 4 lessons, and monetization has 6 lessons.  

And as you saw in the screenshot above, they’re still adding new courses and lessons. 

This is because the internet and blogging/YouTube space is constantly changing, so you need to be ready to iterate as you go. 

The course is packed with info and great for beginners trying to reach that full-time income milestone (which they define as $4,000 per month). 

That said, there aren’t many advanced SEO strategies, and they totally skip over offsite link building. It seems like their goal is to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible so that noobies don’t get confused. 

This may have worked in the past, but judging by their own lack of recent success stories (which we’ll cover shortly), doesn’t seem to work well anymore.  

#2.) Webinars and office hours

Income School offers three types of live calls to get help with your project.. 

Office hours

Basically if you have any questions about the course material or what you’re learning, you can go to these calls and get your questions answered live. These calls are usually done by either Ricky or a lead member of his team. 

Group work

Building content businesses can be lonely work. 

If you’re someone who prefers working with other people — either for accountability or just to bounce ideas around — these meetings help facilitate that. 

The internet is always changing, and networking with others is one of the best ways to stay ahead of the curve. 

Webinars

The webinars are all live and most of them aren’t recorded. 

They are held by guest experts in digital marketing, affiliate marketing, YouTube, blogging…basically all the things that you need to be successful. 

These webinars are a great way for you to meet giants in the industry, learn from them, and apply what they teach you to your business. 

They’re held at least 3 times a week, and you can find the schedule in the webinar dashboard. 

I went to one of these webinars and while I did find the content useful and the lesson engaging, a lot of what was covered is also covered in the video lessons.

Here’s a screenshot of what kind of calls you can expect, and how often they happen. 

I do want to point out that these calls are held in the US, so the time zones will be difficult if you’re on the other side of the pond. Just something to be aware of. 

#3.) Community

Online course communities can be hit or miss. 

And I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Project 24 community is quite active. 

It has a search function to help you easily find what you’re looking for, and  people there seem genuinely helpful. 

The community has separate categories to help you get your questions answered quickly by people with experience with your problem. 

I took a few screenshots to show you what I mean:

HOWEVER, as you’ll see in the cons, things get ugly if you dig a little deeper. 

#4.) Extra bonuses and resources

Income School hooks you up with some cool bonuses to make your life easier. 

First, there’s the milestone tracker, which basically shows you where students are in their online income journey everywhere in the world. It’s motivating to visualize other students who are building blogging and Youtube businesses and making money all over the world. 

Then there’s the Acabado system. 

Acabado stands out as a popular WordPress theme recognized for its speed, polished design, and comprehensive SEO features. This beginner-friendly system makes your site look legit and “Google friendly”.

It was created by Ricky and Jim themselves, and they use it to build up all of their blogs. 

The last bonus isn’t really a bonus, but I did want to mention it — that’s the Content Challenge. 

To win this challenge, you have to write 60,000 words of content in a single month. 

This could be for your blog, YouTube video scripts, shorts, or any type of content. 

If you achieve this feat, you get a special badge to put on your Discord server profile so that the whole world knows how cool you are. 

JK I’m not sure who actually cares about this, but it’s kinda fun.

Income School Project 24 testimonials

There’s no shortage of rave reviews of Income School. Check out some of the testimonials we found on their site. 

It’s clear that students loved the course in the past (and many still do). That said, we also have evidence of the contrary. 

They also track student progress and report who hits the full-time earner milestone. 

Income School Project 24 pros ✅

✅ High success rates (in the past). The milestone tracker shows they’ve helped over 200 students reach full-time incomes over the years, so what they taught worked well at one point. But nowadays it’s not so clear.

✅ Noob-friendly. Clear step-by-step lessons make Project 24 easier to follow than some other popular blogging courses.

✅ A ton of extra resources to help you. There’s extra videos and resources in each lesson that make the process essentially foolproof. 

✅ Decent community (but not the best). The community is pretty active and the students there have built a great community that wants to see each other succeed. 

✅ Tons of live help. The webinars, group sessions, and office hours are an awesome tool to help answer any questions you might have. Most courses don’t have this level of live personal interaction. 

✅ Not a get rich quick scam. They’re really honest with their marketing and don’t make overhyped claims. Look at what they said in the sales page 👇

Income School Project 24 cons ❌

This used to be one of the best blogging courses on the market, but in my opinion, this isn’t the case anymore

❌ Lacks advanced strategies. While this is great for brand new content creators, you’ll “outgrow” this course faster than some other more comprehensive training options. 

❌ Internal company drama. There’s been a lot of recent behind-the-scenes drama at Income School. I won’t get into it here, but you can find entire webpages dedicated to it (Just Google Nate Black Income School drama).

❌ No refunds. It’s a yearly subscription, so you’ll keep access until your pay period is done. They claim they do this because students in the past have signed up, downloaded and whizzed through the information and then canceled. 

❌ Old school ideas. It doesn’t matter how detailed and user-friendly the course is — if the strategies no longer work, you’re screwed. 

Income School is known for running income challenges where they build sites to $4k/month in 24 months (hence the name, Project 24). They even started doing “Project DoubleTime” to get to $4k/month in 12 months. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like they’ve been able to hit their goals using their own strategies in recent years.  

❌ Censorship. Ricky has kicked out students who have doubted or expressed their legitimate concerns about the business model. How do I know this?

Because they’re also a part of the community of one of my favorite courses, and there is an entire thread of ex-Income School students that have jumped ship. 

Here’s what some people are saying…

TL;DR: Is Income School Project 24 worth it?

The internet is a whole new beast now than it was 10 even 5 years ago. And much of what worked in the past isn’t working great today. 

I’ve had to personally change strategies for my own blog because of all the updates Google has made in the last 6 months.

According to multiple students, it’s been several years since Income School has used their system to create a successful site (according to their own metrics). 

This kind of makes it difficult for people to trust the product. 

From my experience, there are several key elements that every website needs to have. Those fundamentally don’t really change. The more complex strategies come when you’re ready to take your blog or website to the next level. 

With that in mind, while I was going through the Income School Project course, I found that it’s great for beginners because the basics of setting up a blog or YouTube channel is clearly explained.  

But if you want to actually make good money with said blog, I think the following programs will be more helpful. 

That said, if you plan to also start a YouTube channel to complement your blog, it may still be worth it for you. There are no other courses I know of that combine both blogging and YouTube (which, speaking from experience, can be a powerful combo!).

Income School alternatives

I’ve taken too many blogging and affiliate marketing courses to count (at least on one hand). 

Here are the ones that have most directly helped me build a full-time passive income.

Each has pros and cons (which I cover here), but I believe any of these three will get you further than Income School. 

• The Affiliate Lab ($200 discount link). Best all-in-one beginner-to-advanced course. (Affiliate Lab review)
• Authority Hacker (60% discount link). Best beginner-friendly option that’s more comprehensive than Income School. Best UI out of all courses I’ve taken. (Authority Hacker review)
• Fat Stacks (take free course first). Less refined, but jammed with gold. Includes the best blogging community I’ve found. (Fat Stacks review).

You can’t go wrong with any of these options. 

If you’re more interested in Youtube than blogging, check out my Mastering YouTube for the Busy Professional review.